Salute to Adventurers | Page 2

beyond a woman's
bearing; so I had perforce to forsake my colleging and take a hand with
our family vexations. The life made me hard and watchful, trusting no
man, and brusque and stiff towards the world. And yet all the while
youth was working in me like yeast, so that a spring day or a west wind
would make me forget my troubles and thirst to be about a kindlier
business than skulking in a moorland dwelling.
My mother besought me to leave her. "What," she would say, "has
young blood to do with this bickering of kirks and old wives'
lamentations? You have to learn and see and do, Andrew. And it's time
you were beginning." But I would not listen to her, till by the mercy of
God we got my father safely forth of Scotland, and heard that he was
dwelling snugly at Leyden in as great patience as his nature allowed.
Thereupon I bethought me of my neglected colleging, and, leaving my
books and plenishing to come by the Lanark carrier, set out on foot for
Edinburgh.
The distance is only a day's walk for an active man, but I started late,
and purposed to sleep the night at a cousin's house by Kirknewton.
Often in bright summer days I had travelled the road, when the moors
lay yellow in the sun and larks made a cheerful chorus. In such weather
it is a pleasant road, with long prospects to cheer the traveller, and

kindly ale-houses to rest his legs in. But that day it rained as if the
floodgates of heaven had opened. When I crossed Clyde by the bridge
at Hyndford the water was swirling up to the key-stone. The ways were
a foot deep in mire, and about Carnwath the bog had overflowed and
the whole neighbourhood swam in a loch. It was pitiful to see the hay
afloat like water-weeds, and the green oats scarcely showing above the
black floods. In two minutes after starting I was wet to the skin, and I
thanked Providence I had left my little Dutch Horace behind me in the
book-box. By three in the afternoon I was as unkempt as any tinker, my
hair plastered over my eyes, and every fold of my coat running like a
gutter.
Presently the time came for me to leave the road and take the short-cut
over the moors; but in the deluge, where the eyes could see no more
than a yard or two into a grey wall of rain, I began to misdoubt my
knowledge of the way. On the left I saw a stone dovecot and a cluster
of trees about a gateway; so, knowing how few and remote were the
dwellings on the moorland, I judged it wiser to seek guidance before I
strayed too far.
The place was grown up with grass and sore neglected. Weeds made a
carpet on the avenue, and the dykes were broke by cattle at a dozen
places. Suddenly through the falling water there stood up the gaunt end
of a house. It was no cot or farm, but a proud mansion, though badly
needing repair. A low stone wall bordered a pleasance, but the garden
had fallen out of order, and a dial-stone lay flat on the earth.
My first thought was that the place was tenantless, till I caught sight of
a thin spire of smoke struggling against the downpour. I hoped to come
on some gardener or groom from whom I could seek direction, so I
skirted the pleasance to find the kitchen door. A glow of fire in one of
the rooms cried welcome to my shivering bones, and on the far side of
the house I found signs of better care. The rank grasses had been mown
to make a walk, and in a corner flourished a little group of pot-herbs.
But there was no man to be seen, and I was about to retreat and try the
farm-town, when out of the doorway stepped a girl.
She was maybe sixteen years old, tall and well-grown, but of her face I

could see little, since she was all muffled in a great horseman's cloak.
The hood of it covered her hair, and the wide flaps were folded over her
bosom. She sniffed the chill wind, and held her head up to the rain, and
all the while, in a clear childish voice, she was singing.
It was a song I had heard, one made by the great Montrose, who had
suffered shameful death in Edinburgh thirty years before. It was a
man's song, full of pride and daring, and not for the lips of a young
maid. But that hooded girl in the wild weather sang it with a challenge
and a fire that no